The Conclusion of the TimeShare Sales Saga

The actual timeshare presentation and tour was well, pathetic. And that's being nice.

First off, no one even offered us a glass of water, much less a soda or anything else. Our sales person vaguely pointed toward the babysitting room, not bothering to introduce me to the person in whose hands I'd be leaving my daughter (by the way, I think the girl was about 15 years old). When we shared our disappiontmetn in the accomodations for the weekend, we were told that we could have upgraded to stay at the actual resort for less than a hundred bucks.

Us: Why didn't anyone tell us that????

Them: Well, uh, we have field agents, we can't really control what they say/do, blah blah blah.

Us: And the hotel that you put us up at was extremely crappy.

Them: Yeah, we're aware of that problem (but we are making no effort to rectify it, or even offer you anything for your trouble). In other words, we don't do "personal responsibility."

The tour itself was lame, too. Most of the resort was closed (the spa was closed, several pools were undergoing maintenance, the restaurant was closed, the club room was closed, etc etc etc. And the girl kept trying to sell us on shoulder season time (???)

Basically, any time we asked a question or raised an objection, our sales person's response was "That's why a Spring/Fall week would be perfect for you."

Yikes. The other sales guy told us his last client showed up stinking drunk. Hmmm, sounds like we're in good company here. As if the whole experience didn't already make me feel special enough.

The sales girl actually told us that she had a client who bought a winter week for $72,000.

Maybe THAT person was drunk. Or they know absolutely nothing about a little concept called ROI. Because it would take them about 30 years to recoup their investment.

Anyway, the weekend wasn't a complete bust because I learned a valuable lesson or two (See yesterday's post). And obviously, my sales resistance is increasing, which is a good thing.

And on the plus side, we did get to do a tiny bit of shopping, during whihc I did find the Coach wallet I had been looking for, plus a leather wristlet for my digital camera.

By the way, if you have the most unfortunate circumstances of BEING a timeshare sales person, you deserve to take a look at a more lucrative career that requires you to do absolutely none of the embarrassing things that sales lady had to do yesterday. (And no selling, either.)

Your QoD?

What's the most recent colossal mistake you've made? What lesson did you take away from the exerpeince? Can you see that you attracted the experience in order to learn the lesson?